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Spain king to attend Cotec Europe business forum in Mafra

King Felipe VI of Spain is to travel to Portugal on 7 February to join the presidents of Portugal and Italy at the Cotec Europe business forum, which this year is to debate the “future of work”.

According to a note on the organisation’s website, the 22nd Cotec Europe meeting is to be held in the former monastery at Mafra, north of Lisbon, and is to be attended by “business leaders from the three countries”.

It is not yet clear whether Felipe’s father, Juan Carlos, a founder of the original Spanish Cotec in 1990, will attend.

According to the event programme, Portugal’s minister of economy, Manuel Caldeira Cabral, is to open the event on the morning of 7 February, and the secretary of state for industry, Ana Teresa Lehman, is to close the panel of business leaders from Portugal, Italy and Spain.

“The debate will focus on the responses of European public policy to this future of work, as well as the outlook from a scientist, a sociologist and a comedian,” Cotec Portugal said on the website.

The organisers also highlight the presence of John Gapper, associate editor and business leader writer at the Financial Times, who is to moderate three panels.

The closing session is to feature speeches from Portugal’s president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, as well as Felipe of Spain.

Cotec Europe was created with the aim of “helping to overcome the specific characteristics of southern economies that constitute barriers to innovation” – including the predominance of small businesses in the economy. It works to align the three countries’ positions within the European Union and to contribute to improving policies, taking account of business needs.

The first Cotec was founded in Spain in 1990, at the initiative of Juan Carlos. Nine years later, in 2001, an Italian equivalent was set up, and two years after that, in 2003, Portugal’s then president, Jorge Sampaio, oversaw the constitution of Cotec Portugal.

Cotec Europa was founded that same year by the three countries’ organisations.

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